1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display (LCD) device and, more particularly, to an LCD device having cutout portions.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) device, one of the commonly used flat panel displays, includes two panels on which field generating electrodes such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode are formed with a liquid crystal layer interposed between the panels. A voltage is applied to the field generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer to determine the alignment of liquid crystal molecules which controls the polarization of incident light so as to display images.
Of the LCD devices, the vertically aligned (VA) mode LCD device, in which the liquid crystal molecules are arranged with their longer axes perpendicular to the display panels in the absence of an electric field, offers a high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle.
In order to implement a wide viewing angle in the VA mode LCD device, a method for forming cutout portions on the field generating electrodes and a method for forming protrusions on the field generating electrodes are used. The cutout portions or protrusions determine the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules. The reference viewing angle can be widened by locating the cutout portions or the protrusions in several directions to diversify the tilt direction of the liquid crystal molecules.
However, the larger the cutout portions is, the better the liquid crystal can be controlled, but so doing decreases the aperture ratio of the LCD device decreased.